Tuesday, October 12, 2010

TWD—Fold Over Pear Torte

I find some of the recipes we do in this group that don’t have a picture in the book and no one is too sure what it should look like are often interesting to see that everyone’s look totally different from one another. So, I had no idea what this was supposed to look like, and after checking out a few blogs that have already posted theirs before I finished my post, I still don’t know just what the correct look is for the torte. A few I looked at seem like their crust went all across the top. Not happening here. Here’s mine.

At one point over the last week, I was going to make half the recipe for this torte because I had half the dough left from making mini tarts for FFWD'smustard tart and because I was just a little skeptical about anyone around here really liking the torte. Kevin isn’t big on pears. I’m not big on custard. But I ended up using that leftover dough for something else. So I ended up making the full recipe, because sometimes that is just easier than doing math.

I whipped up the crust dough for this on Sunday and it chilled until I finished making the torte on Monday. When I went to buy pears at the grocery store last week, for some strange reason, the only pears they had at that time were Asian pears. So I got some of those. They weren’t ripe at all, so they sat in a paper bag for three days and I was hoping they’d ripen. I don’t think they were as ripe as they should have been yet. Because of that, after putting together the chopped fruit and the custard and adding it all to the prepared crust, I baked that thing for probably an hour and a half. After it had baked for 80 minutes, and the crust still wasn’t too dark at all, I left it in the oven, took a phone call and forgot to reset the timer. So I lost track of how long it baked. But I think it was somewhere around 90 minutes. (The recipes suggests 60-70 minutes.) Now you’d think that would be enough time, but the pears aren’t as soft as I would have liked.

That and when I first looked at the finished torte, I thought it looked kind of unappealing. And I even thought to myself that the pears kind of look like chicken. Is it a pot pie? I didn’t say anything to anyone, and when Scott came in the kitchen and saw it, he pointed to it and said, “What is that, chicken?” So while I think the crust looks good (and tastes good), I wasn’t thrilled with the whole torte.

I knew I should have just sliced the pears like you would for apple pie and I knew for my sake I should have just left out the custard. I think this would be really good more like an apple pie, sliced Bartlett pears piled high and then maybe a crumbly topping added. Sometimes, I really feel like making the recipes exactly as written, but know in my gut that I’m better off changing things a bit. I followed along this time. I tasted the photographed slice of torte, the custard is just too much of an eggy taste for me. Scott ate the rest of the piece. We now still have the rest of the torte that I’m not sure will get eaten. Live and learn and I’m always glad when I participate in this group week to week and learn new things. So don’t feel bad for me that I didn’t care for this. I usually really like the added flavor of almond extract, but also thought it didn’t really go well with this and as usual, I left out the rum.

You can check out the other tortes this week on the TWD website and get the recipe from Cakelaw. Her torte looks really good. Maybe mine had too many pears. I used three, but those three Asian pears were huge.

I used all the pears, apricots and walnuts as well as all of the custard filling and this is what it ended up looking like as it was about to go in the oven.

And now I must tell you that as much as I REALLY want to get around to all the other TWD blogs and am already behind, I’m taking Parker, Taylor and Sam and we’re going to Idaho on Wednesday to see my parents. They don’t have school for fall break on Thursday and Friday, so I thought we’d take the extra long weekend and make a trip home. (Scott is staying home to go on a scout campout and Kevin will stay with him.) So I apologize right now if I don’t make it around this week. I’ll be back (and yes, you can say that just like The Terminator.) ;) Catch ya’ll later.

21 comments:

That torte is amazingly high. Too bad that it wasn't an absolute success, but I give you credit for trying all these new recipes. As for the Asian pears, from all the ones I've eaten, they don't get soft like other fruit unless they're overripe and no longer good for eating. When they're at their best, they're really crisp like an apple, but with a pearlike taste.

Hi Katrina, thanks for baking along, custard and all. Your torte looks good to me - I think we all ended up with roughly the same look. LOL when I read about the chicken pot pie - Scott must have been surprised when he tried it!

I agree with you about anything too "eggy" tasting. In fact, that's one reason I bake vegan when possible. Now that you're part of several baking groups, its fun to see what you're doing on a more frequent basis. :-)

LOL on the chicken pot pie thing...now that you mention it.... I was certain there would be chocolate poking out somewhere around here this week. I've been wrong once before, however. It looks good to me...probably b/c we slathered it with whipped cream. Yep, a huge slap right on the top. Yours does look good, really, it does.

Your looks so full and beautifully stuffed! This was on the 'eggy' side, but it certainly didn't lack in the adventure department. I don't think any of us knew what we were going to pull from our ovens. :~)

I'm with you Katrina - I didn't love this one either, mainly because of the custard. Of course, that didn't stop me from eating the crust and picking off some fruit to go with it :) You're right, lots of different tortes this week, I'm really curious to see what Dorie's would look like!

Your torte looks great! Next time, try it with USA Pears. They're MADE for sweet treats like this. Ooh, and the pear plate is adorable! If you ever need ins-pear-ation, check us out at www.usapears.org.